Help with translation, please

[Jules Levin]

I am translating 19th C. Jewish birth registrations from the Pale of 
Settlement.
  I find in a document I am working on the term "shkol'nik" used for adult 
witnesses
aged 58 and 67.  I suspect that these witnesses are employees of the 
synagogue (shul), and the
term shkol'nik was the Russian translation (if anyone actually used it) for 
a shamus (beadle).
Can anyone confirm this or correct it?  Modern dictionaries do not even 
give shkola as a Russian rendering
of shul, but it would be parallel with German and Italian (scuola), so I 
suppose it could have been a hyper-learned
usage...
Jules Levin

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